Most businesses with online presences are primarily concerned with selling products and services. While this is always the primary goal, today’s world of marketing and search engine optimization make it difficult to focus merely on this concept. In order to perform well in search and resonate with target audiences, compelling content is often required. This means that detailed explanations, clever back-stories and engaging forms of content are more often than not required in order to provide an added bit of advantage over the competition. Today, we’ll discuss how you can build great brand-related content that complements your online storefront in ways that please users and search engines alike.

Understand Customers’ Needs

Most of your customers arrive at your website with plenty of questions. Those questions may be specific to your product or may relate more broadly to the type of product they are considering. In either case, it is important to understand initially how customers think and what may be their most common needs. The creation of content that addresses the needs of customers will help businesses online perform in ways that those who merely offer products simply cannot imagine. Think of a Frequently Asked Questions section, but on an entirely different level. Imagine a detailed product description that goes above and beyond simple words. Pinging users with content that tells a story at the same time that it informs is the best way to unlock your potential customers’ minds and convert them into loyal fans.

Listen to Their Wants

Through social media, email and various metrics available to webmasters and social media managers, it should be possible to put a thumb on the pulse of what drives your community. What are their interests? How do they resonate to various ideas? After you have created content that fulfils the very needs of consumers, it is then time to address their desires and wants. In this strategy, it is important to ask questions and listen carefully to what your audience is saying. If you do not yet have an established consumer base, then look at the competition’s social media platforms and communities for further inspiration. It also never hurts to inspect other communities built around your topic – such as Reddit – for additional ideas on how to fulfil the wants of consumers in your niche.

Implement Current Events

There is always something happening somewhere in the world – how can you relate this topic to your brand? Whether the current event has something directly to do with your brand or not, there are always methods in which the idea or event can be traced back to a theme that relates to your business. People love news, and there are always possibilities for linking these news items to your brand’s mission, services or more. Controversy should be carefully avoided here in most cases, but a wide variety of news sources and occurrences make it possible to source inspiration from just about anywhere in the world while pinging users with great content.